2016 elections - because it's never too early

[Sheilbh]

Trump just calls for "a second amendment solution" if Hillary wins: https://youtu.be/EcxkkrNSv-4

This sort of stuff and the whole election is rigged really seems dangerous to me

[Valmy]

I guess it is predictable that real concerns about certain aspects of our democracy gets taken to 'EVERYBODY IS ENTIRELY CORRUPT AND THE SYSTEM IS ENTIRELY ROTTEN'. Nuance is lost in politics.

[Jacob]

Trump just calls for "a second amendment solution" if Hillary wins: https://youtu.be/EcxkkrNSv-4

This sort of stuff and the whole election is rigged really seems dangerous to me

Yeah, I agree.

[Sheilbh]

I guess it is predictable that real concerns about certain aspects of our democracy gets taken to 'EVERYBODY IS ENTIRELY CORRUPT AND THE SYSTEM IS ENTIRELY ROTTEN'. Nuance is lost in politics.

Sure. To me it also looks like American Presidential politics seeming more like Latin American or African Presidential politics. As I've said before America's odd for having a Presidential system last so long without sliding into authoritarianism or a coup to 'restore order' or whatever. I think any system requires a minimum degree of civic belief and work to keep it going. This stuff is scary.

[Valmy]

I guess it is predictable that real concerns about certain aspects of our democracy gets taken to 'EVERYBODY IS ENTIRELY CORRUPT AND THE SYSTEM IS ENTIRELY ROTTEN'. Nuance is lost in politics.

Sure. To me it also looks like American Presidential politics seeming more like Latin American or African Presidential politics. As I've said before America's odd for having a Presidential system last so long without sliding into authoritarianism or a coup to 'restore order' or whatever. I think any system requires a minimum degree of civic belief and work to keep it going. This stuff is scary.

We have been here before though. In the past reforms took place to restore faith in the system. And we tried to do that only for the Supreme Court to knock it down. We will see what happens.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think Sheilbh is drawing connections that just aren't there. There's little similarity between Latin American / African Presidential politics and ours, there is no genuine slide toward dictatorship. The American Presidency has grown stronger in the past hundred years, but that's largely a function of the executive being the only part of government that really "does things", and the role of American Federal government becoming much larger in the last hundred years.

If we had a Prime Minister they'd be just as powerful, if not actually moreso (due to presumed legislative support) than the current President. Our party and general election systems are largely designed to keep the crazies out. But occasionally, a crazy has made it to the nomination--I don't think any have truly ever won. The closest we've come is Jackson, and he wasn't as crazy as he's made out to be, and also won in a very different era with a little bit different electoral situation (it wasn't full popular vote in each state in 1828--two selected electors in the legislature.) If the GOP had the same election system as the Democrats in the primaries, we'd be talking most likely about Cruz vs Clinton at this point.

[mongers]

Former republican Senator Gordon Humphrey says Trump is mentally unsound and unfit to be President. 

[Sheilbh]

As I say when's the last time a major Presidential candidate said the election was going to be stolen from him and his supporters 100 days before the vote?

It isn't the real concerns that people have that can be remedied that worries me. It's this language of the entire electoral process is rigged and illegitimate from a major candidate (and media figures like Hannity) that I find worrying. Maybe Trump will be a one off but maybe not this sort of language is corrosive because it destroys belief in the system and in the democratic process. Trump's the first, if future candidates pre-announce that their opponents are stealing elections you're getting into trouble.

[OttoVonBismarck]

As I say when's the last time a major Presidential candidate said the election was going to be stolen from him and his supporters 100 days before the vote?

It isn't the real concerns that people have that can be remedied that worries me. It's this language of the entire electoral process is rigged and illegitimate from a major candidate (and media figures like Hannity) that I find worrying. Maybe Trump will be a one off but maybe not this sort of language is corrosive because it destroys belief in the system and in the democratic process. Trump's the first, if future candidates pre-announce that their opponents are stealing elections you're getting into trouble.

Well Andrew Jackson outright claimed the election of 1824 was stolen from him, contributing to an uncertain and dangerous time in our Republic. Now, you're probably right in the modern era no one has outright claimed an election will be stolen, at the Presidential candidate level. But a lot of people have persistently made these claims for years. Romney supporters believed inner city Cleveland districts that had zero Romney votes were signs of fraud, and that the polls underrepresented Romney's real support due to a large conspiracy. Libs claimed W. Bush stole both of his elections. Nixon privately made the argument for the rest of his life the 1960 election was stolen from him.

I'm not sure if a larger portion of people believe in systemic rigging than in the past, but maybe it is being spoken louder and is more visible in part because everything is more visible now than it once was.

[Valmy]

Yeah that film 'Fahrenheit 9/11' claimed Dubya stole the election by disenfranchising the black voters in Florida.

[Sheilbh]

But what you're talking about there is supporters of a candidate or conservatives or liberals moaning after they lost. The situation here is as if Romney or Gore went around proclaiming that the election was stolen. Plus as I say he's getting this in early, we're three months away and he's saying he wouldn't be surprised if it's rigged, or stolen and people need to keep their eyes on it. Has a major American candidate ever gone into the election saying he doesn't really believe the election will be fair?

It seems unprecedented to me - even in the early days of the US. The change isn't necessarily the number of people who believe but a major candidate whipping it up - and being aided by utter rank hacks in the media like Hannity.

Edit: And I should say my worry is that this is a candidate moving the boundaries of political discourse. I feel this is the first time but I don't think it'll be the last which is when the problems will be.

[Valmy]

LOL I can only imagine how Hannity would have reacted if Gore had claimed that. Though I don't know if he was even a thing in 2000, I didn't start listening to him until a few years later. Man his stupidity was transparent.

[Sheilbh]

LOL I can only imagine how Hannity would have reacted if Gore had claimed that. Though I don't know if he was even a thing in 2000, I didn't start listening to him until a few years later. Man his stupidity was transparent.

He's pretty awful. He's so far been a huge Bush supporter, then a Tea Partier, then a convert to immigration reform, then back to a Tea Partier now a full Trumpite. As Douthat put it the only constant line in his career is power worship of whichever group in the GOP is in the ascendancy

[Valmy]

I just remember he went off an anti-Belgium rant when he said they could never do anything ever again because of their 19th century atrocities in the Belgian Congo. Which was ridiculous in itself but just a few minutes before he said it was ridiculous to hold what happened to the Native Americans against us since that happened a long time ago 

[Razgovory]

I think Sheilbh is drawing connections that just aren't there. There's little similarity between Latin American / African Presidential politics and ours, there is no genuine slide toward dictatorship. The American Presidency has grown stronger in the past hundred years, but that's largely a function of the executive being the only part of government that really "does things", and the role of American Federal government becoming much larger in the last hundred years.

If we had a Prime Minister they'd be just as powerful, if not actually moreso (due to presumed legislative support) than the current President. Our party and general election systems are largely designed to keep the crazies out. But occasionally, a crazy has made it to the nomination--I don't think any have truly ever won. The closest we've come is Jackson, and he wasn't as crazy as he's made out to be, and also won in a very different era with a little bit different electoral situation (it wasn't full popular vote in each state in 1828--two selected electors in the legislature.) If the GOP had the same election system as the Democrats in the primaries, we'd be talking most likely about Cruz vs Clinton at this point.

Well, we did have a civil war that one time.